Perspective
by barelythere7
Summary: Being the youngest of seven, I grew up watching people. Sometimes I would just sit in a corner of the Burrow's kitchen, and watch all of the people that passed through, the things they did. In some odd, crazy way, it comforted me."
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, although I would really love to. **

My mind is elsewhere all day. This is routine, for me, but I haven't yet gotten the hang of it to the point where I can avoid walking into things. And, of course, after I walk straight into Mark Havisham's back for the fourth time in a row, he turns straight around and puts his hands on my shoulders, shaking me; my dazed eyes flick back towards him.

"Ginny, really," he says, a note of anxiety in his voice. "What's gotten into you today? You're worse than normal."

"I'm fine," I assure him. "Really, it's nothing."

His eyes search mine, but he seems to be on the fence about believing me or not, so I give him one last assurance to push him over the edge.

"I'll be okay, I swear," I say, and after a couple seconds he nods and sets off down the corridor full of bustling students. As soon as he's out of sight, the same scene that has been replaying in my head all morning pops up once more, and I close my eyes, remembering the scene this morning at breakfast fully…

"_Harry, we've just got to grit our teeth and do it." My brother Ron is unsuccessfully attempting to convince his best friend that it's better to find dates to the upcoming Yule Ball sooner rather than later. He continues his convincing, and I, several seats down, almost choke on my cornflakes for Ron's next argument:_

"_When we get back to the common room tonight, we'll both have partners – agreed?"_

"_Er… okay," Harry agrees._

_And I, I am on Cloud Nine - because, thanks to my ridiculous ever-present daydreaming, I have suddenly got it in my head now that Harry will ask me._

But I am knocked out from my reminiscing as someone accidentally bumps into me, and I am jolted back into the world where Harry sees me only as his best friend's little sister.

"Oops, sorry, didn't see you there," says the person who brought me out of my reverie.

"Don't worry about it." I look up, to see who it is, and then – "Oh, hi, Neville," I say quite glumly. I feel somewhat badly that I've greeted him like this, but as he recognizes who it is he's bumped into, his face lights up and I realize he didn't notice my melancholy mien at all.

"Ginny! I was just looking for you!" he says quite animatedly, and I almost wonder if Professor Flitwick's class practiced Cheering Charms today, but then I realize that this is just regular Neville. "I… I was wondering if, if you might like… to go to the ball with me," he continues.

"Oh," I say, for lack of anything else. "Didn't… didn't you ask Hermione, though?" I only say this to stall for time; I already know perfectly well that Hermione's already got a date.

"Nah, she's going with someone else," he says.

Completely out of other suitable stallings for time, my brain tries to figure out what I want to say. In the meantime, Harry's face swims to the front of my mind.

And then I think. I mean, actually _think._ Without daydreams or fantasies involved at all. I don't know where I got the idea I'd be going with Harry Potter. He barely notices me and he wouldn't have a sudden realization in time to ask me anyway. Third-years aren't allowed to go if they don't get invited, so technically, this is my only ticket into the ball. Besides, the poor bloke's already been rejected once.

So I turn back to Neville and say defiantly, "Sure. I'd love to."

"Great!" he says, grinning with joy. "So… I guess I'll meet you in the common room at around eight, then."

"Okay," I say, smiling only for Neville's benefit. There is no way I'm going to ruin Neville's night.

I slowly make my way back to the common room.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, although I would really love to. :D**

"Fairy lights," I say dully to the Fat Lady, pausing at her portrait.

"Spectacular," she agrees, swinging open.

I sink into an armchair in a corner, away from the noise and people. I've only been there several minutes before my brother Ron stumbles through the portrait hole, looking as if he'd just come off of a very bad Memory Charm.

"What happened?" I ask him, moving forward and guiding him back to my corner. "Spell gone wrong?"

"No….," he mutters. "Nothing like that. She wouldn't have said yes; why did I ask her anyway? Don't know what I was thinking…" His eyes dart around, as if this mysterious "she" might pop up anywhere.

Believing him to be quite mad, I implore my brother to explain what happened. After some questioning, I finally get it out of him that he asked Fleur Delacour to the Yule Ball. Fighting an urge to laugh out loud, I pat his arm and sympathetically assure him that she's not worth it.

"What's up, Ron?"

And it's him. Harry Potter. As Ron blabbers on about his predicament, I find myself, per usual, avoiding Harry's eyes for fear of staring at him for too long. But when Ron's blubbering becomes too cryptic for Harry to discern it correctly, I take a deep breath and look up.

"He- er- just asked Fleur Delacour to go to the ball with him," I say, but restating it just makes me want to laugh more.

"I don't know what made me do it!" Ron's saying. "What was I playing at? There were people – all around – I've gone mad – everyone watching! I was just walking past her in the entrance hall – she was standing there talking to Diggory – and it sort of came over me – and I asked her!"

Here he moans and puts his face in his hands, mumbling on about how much of an idiot he was.

"She's part veela," Harry's saying, attempting to console Ron. "You were right – her grandmother was one. It wasn't your fault, I bet you just walked past when she was turning on the old charm for Diggory and got a blast of it – but she was wasting her time. He's going with Cho Chang."

Ron turns his face up to stare at Harry, and I follow suit.

"I asked her to go with me just now," Harry says bluntly, "and she told me."

My smile freezes and then slides off my face; how could I have been so stupid? Of course Harry didn't want to go with me; who would choose me if Cho Chang was the alternative? I had been living in a fool's paradise up until now, and it had taken a horrible shock to bring me back out of it.

"This is mad," my brother's saying. "We're the only ones left who haven't got anyone – well, except Neville. Hey – guess who he asked?" My head snaps up and I turn bright red. How did Ron find out so quickly, when Neville only asked me a quarter of an hour ago?

But then he says, "_Hermione!_" and my fears are assuaged.

"_What?_" Harry says, and I'm somewhat disappointed. Did I want Harry to figure out about me and Neville?

"Yeah, I know!" Ron continues, beginning to laugh. "He told me after Potions! Said she's always been really nice, helping him out with work and stuff – but she told him she was already going with someone. Ha! As if! She just didn't want to go with Neville… I mean, who would?"

"Don't!" I mutter, turning scarlet and mortified to imagine what my brother would say if I revealed that _I_ was actually going with Neville. "Don't laugh-"

But just then Hermione enters the common room.

"Why weren't you two at dinner?" she asks Harry and Ron.

"Because," I say, still annoyed about the Neville thing, "-oh shut up laughing, you two – because they've both just been turned down by girls they asked to the ball!"

They stop laughing. Ron shoots me a look of contempt. "Thanks a bunch, Ginny," he says.

Hermione, however, doesn't seem as put out as Ron and Harry, and instead says defiantly, "All the good-looking ones taken, Ron? Eloise Midgen starting to look quite pretty now, is she? Well, I'm sure you'll find someone _somewhere_ who'll have you."

Ron, as she was saying this, was staring at her with wide eyes and the air of someone who just had a great epiphany.

"Hermione, Neville's right," he says. "You _are_ a girl…"

"Oh, well spotted," she replies.

"Well – you can come with one of us!"

"No, I can't," Hermione shoots back.

"Oh come on," Ron says, now beginning to sound quite impatient, "we need partners, we're going to look really stupid if we haven't got any, everyone else has…"

But Hermione begins to blush. "I can't come with you, because I'm already going with someone."

"No, you're not!" says Ron. "You just said that to get rid of Neville!"

I glance at Harry, and he's watching them with a somewhat confused expression; but he and I have both been present during many of Ron and Hermione's bickering. I, however, have never wanted to punch Ron more than now; it amazes me how thick he is being.

"Oh, _did_ I?" Hermione asks, her voice going shrill. "Just because it's taken _you_ three years to notice, Ron, doesn't mean no one else has spotted I'm a girl!"

Ron just looks at her. And then he starts grinning like a fool, making me want to smack him even more.

"Okay, okay," he says, "we know you're a girl. That do? Will you come now?"

"I've already told you!" Hermione almost shouts. "I'm going with someone else!" And she went off to the girls' dormitories.

Ron stares at her retreating back with his mouth slightly open. "She's lying," he decides.

"She's not," I say quietly, and Harry and Ron both look at me.

"Who is it then?" my brother demands.

"I'm not telling you, it's her business," I say.

"Right," Ron says, looking extremely annoyed, "this is getting stupid. Ginny, _you_ can go with Harry, and I'll just-"

"I can't," I say almost automatically, turning crimson. The room starts to swim around me, and I cannot believe I was this close. But I shove on. "I'm going with – with Neville. He asked me when Hermione said no, and I thought… well… I'm not going to be able to go otherwise, I'm not in fourth year." _But you could have,_ a voice in my head says. I am officially miserable. "I think I'll go and have dinner."

As I walk away, I can hear Ron say to Harry, "What's got into them?"

But I don't go to dinner. I don't really go anywhere. I stand outside the Fat Lady, frozen, for what seems like hours. I only unfreeze when Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown climb out of the portrait hole, giggling madly. As they walk down the corridor, I hear snatches of their conversation.

"And I thought I'd got off better," Lavender's saying. "But compared to Harry, Seamus seems like a joke."

"Don't say that," Parvati replies. "I expect he only asked me as a last resort."

I don't move. Harry asked Parvati? And if she was a last resort, he must have not even considered me…

Suddenly, I can't breathe. And I feel like I'm going to throw up, all at the same time. I stumble along the corridor until I find stairs. I climb, up and up, not acknowledging that the staircases are moving as I ascend, not caring how lost I get myself. I'm not crying, but I might as well be.


End file.
